


Spirit of Oak Seeds

by Eiruwei



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Atli Culture and Customs, Coming of Age, Cultural exchange with the Jedi Order, Dancing, Family Relationships - Freeform, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original planet Atla, Playing in the Star Wars Sandbox, Seriously though the cast so far is 100 percent original, They will probably meet canon characters at some point, This is what happens when you give a kid up to the Jedi, because seriously who wouldn't want to write their own planet for the SW universe, but who knows what's going to happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-21 04:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30015996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiruwei/pseuds/Eiruwei
Summary: Si-Chani and Mir-Yung give up their child to the Jedi Order. Ra Gwiras leaves Atla, but Atla doesn't leave her...Or, the story of what happens when children taken by the Jedi seek out their origins. Follows, in no particular order of importance, a man seeking his own history, an awkward kid looking for a place to belong, and the little girl who draws them back to the world where it all started.
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is the product of me making up a background story for a classic OC-insert and that process of worldbuilding spiraling utterly out of control. Before I knew it I was writing less about the story and more about the planet she came from--its history, its culture, its language, its traditions... everything just came pouring out. At one point I was even creating a dictionary and primer on basic Atlina grammar. The story became less about her and more about where she came from. By the time that happened it was all just so massive that I thought, well, it's all here, it'd be a shame not to share it.
> 
> I have no idea where this story is going so I can't guarantee it'll get anywhere decisively. But hey, I made this sandcastle in the Star Wars sandbox, so do you want to look at it?

She does not realize, at first, why they are going on the journey. Her father Mir-Yung wraps her securely to his chest, checking and double-checking that the fabric and the knots tying her in place will not come loose. His wife Si-Chani prepares a belt with tools and supplies--a knife, a pouch, a waterskin, various other things necessary for travel. The rest of their luggage goes into a flat pack on his back. 

Si-Chani comes forward and presses a long kiss to her forehead and she is confused by the sorrow of the action. Mir-Yung holds Si-Chani to his side with one arm for a long moment. Others come to say goodbye, touching her forehead with one knuckle and stroking her short baby hair; others, like Si-Chani, give kisses and whisper short farewells. 

Finally they finish saying goodbye and Mir-Yung is walked by the whole caravan to a clearing a little ways away. Behind them two people come bearing a small v-shaped structure made of wood and canvas. Mir-Yung steps forward and confirms one more time that everything is secure on his person; then he ducks under the canvas and picks up a smooth wooden bar from the grass. The whole contraption rises as he does and she abruptly realizes that they are standing in the control frame of a hang glider. Mir-Yung takes a moment to center himself before he rests a palm on her head and then nods one last farewell to the rest. The caravan lets out calls for safe voyage in reply; she can feel their intent in the air like a solid wave of goodwill, tempered by quiet worry and kept afloat with silent prayer.

A sudden strange wind rises beneath them like a giant's yawn. The rear of the glider rises of its own accord as Mir-Yung begins to move forward, first at a stride and then at a run. Before long they are climbing into the air, borne up by the lift of that strange breath. When she looks down she can see the caravan. There are sails rising from the wagons everywhere, some plain in color and others painted with a rainbow of patterns and designs. 

"You will meet them again, Ra Gwiras," Mir-Yung murmurs low in his throat. It's a soothing sound. He lowers his chin until it rests on her head. "I have seen it on the wind. I know you will."

* * *

They travel like that for days. Mir-Yung flies for hours at a time, sometimes sinking and sometimes rising, but never having to land except when he wishes to. Ra Gwiras wonders how it is possible that wind always comes up beneath them right when he needs it but Mir-Yung simply presses onward, unaffected.

As they travel they gather food rather than eat provisions. The land of this place, she thinks, is unusually bountiful. Mir-Yung can set them down anywhere and promptly begin digging up tubers and roots, gathering fruits and berries, or set about stripping leaves from plants and making it all into a meal, a portion which he mashes up in a small bowl and feeds to his daughter with a wooden spoon. Lakes and rivers dot the landscape everywhere. It's a beautiful country.

Their traveling ceases for a few days when they arrive at another lake. It's the largest she's seen so far, stretching out for what must be miles and miles. At the shore of this place there's a wide area of flat stone slabs arranged into a circle. Huge clusters of canopies and yurt-like tents spread out around it in all directions. Colorful strips of fabric run between the tents and tall posts; spinning ornaments and singing chimes hang suspended across strings and ropes and ribbons; windsocks with long streaming tails, shaped like fish and birds and other animals, billow through the air atop flagpoles. Wind catchers, swirling and geometric with rings of overlapping circles inside rings, dot the ground along paths like flowers in motion, and when Mir-Yung lands in the center of all of this Ra Gwiras spots more twisting ornaments hanging in doorways and on the fringes of canopies. 

A moment passes before someone calls a greeting. Mir-Yung responds in kind, stepping out from the frame of the glider, which hangs suspended in some sort of impossible weightlessness that makes Ra Gwiras' eyes go wide. Then her father lowers it gently to the ground like there is nothing strange about that at all. Ra Gwiras looks up at Mir-Yung's face as she realizes for the first time that he has been making the wind rise by his own power all this time.

Mir-Yung looks down back at her with an unknowing smile. He strokes her head and speaks cheerfully, shining gray eyes squinted into crescents, before he begins untying her. He shifts her over to lie against his shoulder.

"Mir Ko'ona?" A woman is jogging towards them. She wears airy, flowing clothes and her skirt is long, tiered, and a patchwork of different fabrics and trims all layered atop one another, just like the skirts of women of the caravan. Her sleeves are too long and hanging to be practical for the road, though, and her loose top and vest are quite unlike the slim-armed blouses Ra Gwiras is used to seeing. 

"Mir Ko'ona, called Yung," Mir-Yung replies in affirmative and puts his hand out, palm up. The woman reaches out and lays her own hand atop Mir-Yung's in a gesture not unlike in feeling to a handshake.

"Dep Kathbao," the woman replies, "called Mira. You are early!"

"True! We had good winds. How many days?"

"They won't call for another three," Dep-Mira informs. "You may rest a while."

Mir-Yung chatters with Dep-Mira as she leads the way toward a cluster of canopies. Several other people are milling about, some dressed in traveling clothes like Mir-Yung, others in outfits more akin to Dep-Mira's. This area is all hammocks and bedrolls and mats on low wooden box-frames, clearly a quarter for rest. Dep-Mira lets Mir-Yung set his bags down at the end of a long, stretched-out row of hammock stands.

Then they continue walking. Farther down the way is the unmistakable sound of a marketplace. Ra Gwiras takes in the crowd of people. Their heads are as colorful as their clothes—unlike in the caravan, here the hair colors are quite varied; storm gray, pale green, whitish-brown and blue so dark as to be black, there are a myriad of hues and shades. 

After they pass through the sprawling market they come to an open space with roaring firepits. There are pots on blazing fires, flat stones sizzling with oil, and grills; all around are wooden tables piled with meats and vegetables and baskets of fruits and grains. The thud of knives and the clang of utensils sound in all directions. Two tweenling girls speed by carrying a massive sack of salt between them and there is possibly even more shouting here than in the market. Dep-Mira and Mir-Yung are looking in all directions, scanning for something, but what they seek is not here either so they move on again. 

Next there is a large communal area in an open field where groups of people are lounged about talking on woven mats and wooden stools; a play area where several young people, mostly children but some teens, are throwing fabric balls, chasing, and kicking feathered shuttlecocks back and forth amongst themselves; and a washing area right on the lake where people are scrubbing clothes on one end and diving naked into the water on the other. They are close to completing a full circuit of the entire massive circle when Dep-Mira lets out an exclamation. 

The area they are in now is the quietest and most peaceful they have encountered so far. There are several beds spread out here, this time in long open tents rather than under canopies and lean-tos, but there are no hammocks to be seen. Dep-Mira, who had been peeking into a dark, dry tent filled with hanging plants, beckons someone out.

"Grandmother!" Mir-Yung says happily as he surges forward to throw his free arm around the emerged woman. She is a little thing, hunched and wrinkled, but she has bright gray eyes and a face that was so plainly alike to Mir-Yung's own that there can be no doubt that this is his flesh and blood.

* * *

Mir-Yung and Ra Gwiras spend a few idle days at the Circle of the Lake. These people, Ra Gwiras soon learns, are a communal one; she is passed along to friends and friends of friends and then to acquaintances so distant as to be total strangers, all without the slightest bit of anxiety on the part of anyone. On the first day she loses Mir-Yung completely; by the end of it her watchers are so removed from the original minders that no one has any idea who she belongs to. They spend a futile while wading through the crowds, holding her up in the air above their heads and shouting for her parents, but no one claims her. The old auntie hanging onto Ra Gwiras eventually just shrugs and takes her home to a tent somewhere completely removed from the guest quarters where Mir-Yung is sleeping. She is fed a dinner of mashed tubers and milk, put to bed beside what Ra Gwiras would call a family dog—except for the fact, of course, that the creature is not a dog but a thing with four ears and a round puff-ball tail—and then she is woken up, put in a sling, and taken to work by a different woman affiliated with that household. Ra Gwiras sits on this lady's back as she works in the infirmary for another half day before Dep-Mira spots her at the dining grounds during lunch break and cheerfully takes Ra Gwiras back. She is returned to Mir-Yung's arms almost thirty-six hours later; Mir-Yung's only response is to check her bottom to see if she has been changed and then continue on with his business.

On the third day Dep-Mira and Ra Gwiras' great grandmother, Ra-Nimak, accompany Mir-Yung to the largest tent of the Circle. Ra Gwiras then shortly discovers that the tent is not a tent at all, but a crashed spaceship whose outer hull had been disguised by the sea of colorful fabrics and assortment of haphazard murals.

Dumbfounded, she can only watch as the people who she'd seen hauling water in barrels and weaving textiles by hand pull levers, walk through automatic doors, tap touch-screens, and enter comm-link sequences with casual aplomb. Mir-Yung and Ra-Nimak sit down together in front of a holotable while Dep-Mira stands at a nearby console and waits. After a few minutes a beep sounds and a fuzzy blue figure springs to life before them.

"I see you, Dep Kathbao!" the projected woman greets cheerfully. 

"I see you!" Dep-Mira replies and then gestures to Ra Gwiras' family. "Jo Chiapwe, this is Mir Ko'ona and his daughter Ra Gwiras. And you know Ra-Nimak," she adds.

"I see you, brother," Jo Chiapwe greets. Mir-Yung echoes the greeting with a small smile.

"Will you connect the signal for us,  _ anme _ ?"

"Yes, they began the transmission just a moment ago. One second…"

There is a brief pause before the image flickers. Jo Chiapwe smiles and makes an affirmative gesture. Dep-Mira nods her thanks before Jo Chiapwe flickers away and is replaced by a wolfman. Ra Gwiras’ eyes just about bug out of her head, but the adults don’t bat an eyelash. The wolfman speaks.

“His name is Vona Taaraf,” Ra-Nimak translates into their language. “He speaks his greetings.”

Mir-Yung tilts his head and then replies, “I see you, Vona Taaraf. Are you well?”

Mir-Yung and Vona Taaraf exchange pleasantries and then begin to speak using words Ra Gwiras does not yet know. There is discussion and then a mention of dates, talk of terrain and travel, and worried mentions about the monsoon and bad flying; Vona makes a reassuring gesture and says, according to Ra-Nimak’s interpretation, “If you are late, he will wait for you. Do not worry.”

Eventually Mir-Yung seems to nod in confirmation and the two parties come to an agreement. The wolfman bows respectfully before the connection closes.

“Will you leave today, Yungat?” Ra-Nimak queries. 

“Yes, I think so, Grandmother,” Mir-Yung replies. “But I think I will probably return and wait for the Hama here with you instead of flying on to meet them in the rains.”

“But you will not have little Ra Gwiras with you then,” Ra-Nimak murmurs and bends forward to swipe at Ra Gwiras’ nose with a gentle finger. Ra Gwiras stares at her sad, fond smile and suddenly begins to comprehend the meaning of the words spoken today.

* * *

On the way to the Circle of the Lake Mir-Yung never seemed overly tired even after long days of flying, and in the first few weeks after leaving the Lakelands it remains so. But in the third week, after the plains and the water have shifted into forests and low, sloping mountains, dark clouds gather and rain begins to fall. First they are only light mists and sprinkles but soon enough they become drenching downpours. One morning they awake to such a furious flood that Ra Gwiras is certain that they will be grounded for the whole day.

Mir-Yung, though, continues on. He puts Ra Gwiras in her sling, dons a short cape over her, pulls on a hood, and takes off again as usual. Ra Gwiras is shocked as the rain parts for them. It slides away to the sides as if being blocked by some invisible glass shield, completely negating any need for the cape at all.

Or, well, until midmorning hits. In a single moment the invisible shield breaks and a torrent of water drenches them. Mir-Yung gasps and shakes his head, sputtering and trying to blink through the sudden onslaught, and they spend several seconds being pelted with merciless precipitation before he manages to regain his concentration. After a few moments the rain begins to part again, but Ra Gwiras understands then why he had put the cape on. Until now, flying for Mir-Yung has seemed like a kind of peaceful meditation; but now his brow is pinched with concentration and his eyes are intense with focus.

They begin to take breaks far more frequently. Mir-Yung sets up the tarp and the hammock and more often begins taking naps when Ra Gwiras does. He eats more, too, crawling through bushes and hopping up and down trees in search of fruit. They stop earlier, rise later, fly slower, and make considerably less progress. 

Ra Gwiras cannot help but begin to think that her father is very determined to have taken this long journey alone. She wonders why he is going to such lengths. She wonders why her mother did not come, why they are going now instead of waiting for the caravan to reach the Circle of the Crags in its own time, and why she has to go at all. 

But then she finds the answer.

They reach Liawilo and the Circle after ten more days of flight. The rains let up for the final hours of the journey and Ra Gwiras can see the Crags and the settlement of the Circle spread out at the edge of the canyon as they approach. It is far larger than the Circle of the Lake was. Also unlike the Circle of the Lake, there are more permanent buildings here made of wood and stone, and the landscape is much more akin to a traditional city's. There are even fields and windmills. As they soar over them to reach the Circle, workers call out and wave at their passing. 

Mir-Yung lands once again on a circle of large stone slabs. Several others are coming and going here. Their gliders are different—some are simple parachutes, made of sail line and canvas, while others are huge affairs of solid wood, twice the size of Mir-Yung's glider and crewed by two, three, or even four people. She watches as a group holds out their arms and push against empty air, lifting the heavy sky-boat with that same magic that Mir-Yung has been using, before leaping on with impossibly high jumps and soaring away, carried by another summoned wind.

Sitting in the midst of all the activity is a craft larger than even the sky boats. In a churning sea of warm wood and flowing cloth it is a strange, foreign thing made of colorless, cold steel. Mir-Yung begins to walk purposefully towards it. As he goes he lowers his hood and pulls his cape back, exposing Ra Gwiras to the humid air. There's a strange energy behind the way his hand comes up to cup the back of her head as he approaches. 

"Hu Chelmin?" he calls. Ra Gwiras turns her head and manages to glimpse a ramp and an open door from behind Mir-Yung's forearm. It's another spaceship, she realizes. Just like the one crashed at Lake De'ibi, but—smaller and sleeker, and—more solid-looking, with fewer round edges and more sharp, extended bits. 

"Is that me?" a man's voice calls back. A moment later two figures are at the door and standing on the ramp. 

"Mir Ko'ona, called Yung," Mir-Yung introduces as he steps up to join them. He holds out his hand.

"I see you,  _ anme _ ," the man replies as he puts his own hand atop his. "Hu Chelmin, called Erith." 

Mir-Yung looks to his companion. There's a short beat before Hu-Erith chuckles and nudges him. 

"Oh! I'm Fa-Sena Asair," the boy says, flustered. Then he pauses. "Ah, er—I mean, I'm Fa, ah, Fa Asair. Called, um, Sena."

Mir-Yung, who has until this moment felt like a coiled spring of wary tension, suddenly seems to unwind. He lets out a hearty laugh.

"I see you, little brother," he greets Fa-Sena kindly. Fa-Sena blushes and begins fidgeting with the hems of his sleeves.

Mir-Yung begins untying his daughter. When she is free of the sling, he lifts her and holds her out.

Hu-Erith, Ra Gwiras thinks now that she can see him head-on, looks like Si-Chani. He has a slim nose and a wide, mobile mouth, just like she does. And though his face is angular and his jaw much stronger, he has the exact same emerald green eyes. Unlike Si-Chani, though, his hair is less of a rose gold and more of a bright copper. 

He is also a Jedi.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hello, Ra Gwiras," Hu-Erith greets as he reaches out and takes her, oblivious to the fact that her entire world is undergoing a paradigm shift. She gapes at his dark brown robe, his beige tunics, his chocolate-colored tabards and his shining lightsaber hilt, disbelieving. Jedi were—they were a thing of fiction, and he was—

Ra Gwiras looks at Fa-Sena. His hair—ashy storm gray, just like she'd seen that first day at the market—is shorn close to the head. There's a fledgling braid beginning behind his ear and he's dressed almost exactly like his master, but in shades of navy blue and gray.

"Hello," Fa-Sena says hesitantly as he sees her stare. He begins reaching out before glancing at Hu-Erith and Mir-Yung. Mir-Yung smiles and Hu-Erith nods encouragingly, so Fa-Sena puts his hand atop Ra Gwiras' head and rubs it hesitantly.

"Did you wait long for us, brother?" Mir-Yung asks as he takes his daughter back.

"Not at all. We only arrived this morning. You made it sound as if the rains would stop you in your tracks," he adds, "but you are right on time."

Mir-Yung grimaces a bit. Ra Gwiras can almost feel the silent ache of his muscles and the low pounding throb at the back of his head. Due to no small effort, she thinks. He has clearly pushed hard to make this meeting on time.

Perhaps the Jedi can see this, too, because Fa-Sena pipes up and says, "We have yet to go into the city proper, but the townsfolk have told us we ought to visit the bathhouse. They said we can eat a meal there, too."

"An excellent suggestion, padawan." Hu-Erith brightens. "Mir-Yung, young Ra Gwiras, why don't we go together? A hot bath and a good meal after a long journey would not go amiss, don't you think?"

* * *

After Mir-Yung has scrubbed himself and his child clean of grime he hands Ra Gwiras over to Fa-Sena and promptly goes off to soak up to his shoulders with Hu-Erith. The washing area is not segregated in any way, not even by the sexes, but the baths for the children and the adults differ in depth and are separate. Fa-Sena stalls for an uncertain moment. But eventually he goes along and finds a pool—close by so that adults are still visible and within shouting distance—and wades in up to his waist.

The other children present call cheerful greetings to him before returning to their business, which appears to be a game of balancing fish-shaped bath toys on a small, overturned handpail. The objects in question are all very round and not at all conducive to stacking. When Fa-Sena sees how precisely the fish levitate and are lowered into place, though, he thinks less about frivolous uses of the Force and more about how much skill and control Atli children have. He begins drifting his way over.

There is a couple with a baby even younger than Ra Gwiras sitting beside the game. Before Fa-Sena can even open his mouth to ask the other children if he can join in, the father plucks Ra Gwiras from Fa-Sena's arms and places her on his knee. Ra Gwiras has just enough height that the action puts her head just above the water.

"Will you join them?" the mother questions curiously as Fa-Sena stands, frozen by the theft of his charge, before the young parents. "They are waiting for you."

Fa-Sena looks over his shoulder and sees the group of children looking up expectantly at him. He glances back at the father, who is balancing Ra Gwiras on his leg with one hand and holding his own child to his chest with the other. The father blinks at him, questioning. Ra Gwiras's shoulders, when Fa-Sena glances at her, rise and drop in something that looks remarkably like a shrug.

"Are you playing, _anme_?" a girl with plum-colored hair demands impatiently. "I'm taking my turn now if you are not!"

When Hu-Erith and Mir-Yung have had their fill of relaxation and finally wander over a great deal of time later, they find Fa-Sena pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with a mint-haired boy. They are staring intently at the bobbing stack of fish, which has grown perilously tall. Not a single person in the bath is moving as they look on, not even the adults, for fear of creating waves that will rock the tabo and topple the tower. Curious, Mir-Yung and Hu-Erith squat down at the edge of the water to watch.

"Ah!" There's a sharp intake of breath as a fish goes on a tad too forcefully. The little hand-pail rocks dangerously and the mint-haired boy scrambles to keep the pile stable with the Force.

"Safe," he breathes when the tabo stills. The fish are swaying treacherously. "Your turn, Sena."

Both Hu-Erith and Mir-Yung regard this with impressed looks, Hu-Erith due to the dexterity of the display, Mir-Yung because the awkward young Fa-Sena has managed to make friends well enough to be addressed without his honorific. Fa-Sena is oblivious to them both as he bites his lip and plucks another fish from the water. It floats up and then descends. The spectators hold their breaths.

Hu-Erith sneezes. The children shout in dismay and whirl on him as Fa-Sena startles and sends fish scattering across the water.

"Master!" Fa-Sena gasps, indignant, while his new friends immediately begin protesting against this unknown uncle. Even the parents are regarding him with twin looks of disappointment. Hu-Erith throws his hands up.

"Forgive me, padawan, but—" Hu-Erith shudders and then sneezes again. Mir-Yung begins to chortle. "But it's cold out of the water. Are you ready to go?"

The end of the game prompts the departure of the other children, too. The plum-haired girl and her cousins rise to find their parents on the adults' side while the mint-haired boy and his very small brother go to stand by the couple and their baby. Ra Gwiras is handed back to Fa-Sena, who promptly returns her to Mir-Yung, and then they all head out to the changing rooms as a small crowd.

Dinner is a mildly chaotic affair. Mir-Yung and Hu-Erith drop a handful of coins into a basket when prompted and then are shuffled onto an outdoor terrace where countless Atli are eating a variety of foods in a variety of positions—some at tables, some standing, some holding their plates on their laps and sitting on the railings, others still piled into hanging cloth chairs suspended from the sturdy wood beams above. 

Mir-Yung finds an open corner with a colorful mat and waves his companions over. Once the four are seated, two servers dressed in bright red vests come by with bowls of thick stew, a basket of perfectly spherical bread rolls, plates of roasted vegetables and mushrooms, and truly prodigious amounts of fruits and berries. This last item is instantly set upon by everyone else in the immediate area, though, so Ra Gwiras figures it had not been intended for their party alone.

For once someone else is available to feed Ra Gwiras, so Mir-Yung is free to immediately begin consuming dizzying amounts of food. He drains his bowl of soup, eats two rolls while waiting for a second serving, and then swallows that down, too. Then he sets to eating the stir-fry; after a whole plate of this he raises a hand in the air and calls for meat.

"Brother, you will eat the establishment out!" Hu-Erith disguises his alarm behind a large laugh. Fa-Sena is staring openly.

"I have been parting rain in flight for almost a month straight," Mir-Yung replies around a mouthful of food. "If I do not eat I will fall over dead." 

This proclamation is met with confusion and concern and Mir-Yung pensively considers how to explain. Then, unbidden, scenes and feelings play out in Ra Gwiras's mind: watching gray clouds and driving rain split away from the glider, swallowing water as it breaks through and drenches her face, coughing and scrambling for focus—then gnawing hunger, crawling in soaked clothes through drenched bushes, greedily grabbing berries from between the leaves—and deep, grinding headaches, only briefly abated by uncomfortable sleep. 

Several surrounding people let out groans and raw noises of sympathy. Mir-Yung flushes and immediately begins to apologize for his bad manners, but there is much arm-waving and back-slapping. When the red-vested servers come by again with a plate of honey-roasted bara skewers, someone tosses coins into the money basket before Mir-Yung has the chance. 

"You are Force exhausted," Hu-Erith diagnoses, a little taken aback by the severity of the journey. "You have strained yourself in coming."

"Any longer and I think the Breath would have gone right out from me," Mir-Yung agrees. "I will have to rest here a while before I make the return journey."

"It was so urgent you arrive here today?" Fa-Sena asks, his own food temporarily forgotten. Hu-Erith eyes his apprentice sidelong.

"It was." Mir-Yung's face is only half-lit by the orange glow of the lantern behind him, but his eyes glint with a solemnity that speaks of life and death. Startled, Fa-Sena falls silent.

"Padawan, I think I see your friends over there," Hu-Erith suddenly speaks up. True enough, the plum-haired girl and her group of cousins are eyeing Fa-Sena from their table across the terrace. They begin speaking and pointing when the boy in question looks over curiously, and there's a short debate among them before the girl nods and begins waving him over energetically.

"...I think she wishes to speak with me, Master," Fa-Sena says after a long pause. "May I go?"

"Whatever gave you that idea, Fa-Sena?" Hu-Erith snorts good-naturedly. It is very good timing, after all. "Yes, apprentice, you may go."

Fa-Sena rises, taking his bowl and his plate with him. Mir-Yung and Hu-Erith watch as Fa-Sena sets his food down at the open spot beside the plum-haired girl. Her face brightens with delight.

"Does he launch very many kites?" Mir-Yung inquires. It only takes Hu-Erith a moment to understand what this turn of phrase means. He snorts again.

"This is his very first mission off-world," Hu-Erith replies. "On our way here, we stopped at three spaceports. At the first he was harassed by a holodocumentary crew interviewing travelers because they thought 'a handsome Jedi apprentice' would raise their ratings. At the second, he was invited to the matchmaking meeting of a major merchant's daughter. At the third, a youngling from a party on the way to the Mid Rim tried to stow away on our ship because he thought my apprentice's eyes looked like jade."

"He does have very beautiful eyes," Mir-Yung points out.

"And he flirts with any sentient being just by breathing." Hu-Erith sighs theatrically. The two men share a short chuckle and several beats of companionable silence pass. But then Mir-Yung's face grows somber and he opens his mouth to speak again.

"We thought she was stillborn," he informs quietly. "She did not cry."

"Is that so?" Hu-Erith murmurs gently as he lays Ra Gwiras' head in to rest in the crook of his neck.

"Yes. We discovered later that there are many problems with her—" Mir-Yung makes a face, searching for the healers' words his wife had used, "with her—blood organ, and with her wind organs. Si-Chani struggled very hard to keep her in the early days."

"Si-Chani is a skilled Force healer," Hu-Erith replies. "There may be no better on Atla to guard your daughter's health than her. And Ra Gwiras looks very well now, does she not? She has survived a long journey."

Mir-Yung is shaking his head before Hu-Erith finishes speaking. "It will not last," he says. "She has said so. The means to make Ra Gwiras' body well do not exist on this planet. If she stays, she cannot remain with the Hama. She will die on the road."

"Do you not have family at the Circle of the Lake?" Hu-Erith inquires softly. "Could she not stay in their care?"

"And live and die chained to De'ibi?" Mir-Yung frowns deeply at him. "To spend every moment waiting for death, never leaving for fear of it? You wish that for a child of the Lakelands?"

"Of course not. I just don't wish for you to think that the Jedi are the only way. If you cannot seek treatment here, you could try to find a way to help her on Iande."

"You think we have not investigated it, brother? We are not of the means. What space-faring stranger comes to this planet who is not summoned? How would we find passage? And how many times would we have to pay for both the travel and the healing? Si-Chani says it cannot be fixed in a day."

"If you do this, you are giving her up, brother. She will no longer be yours."

"She was never ours," Mir-Yung replies. "She is herself. You cannot own a body, _anme_. Not even an infant's," he adds. "They may stay with us, and they may mind us while they are too small to live by themselves, but we only help them to learn. And we are not the final teachers."

Hu-Erith lets out a long breath. "Si-Chani did tell me she left her family long before she came of age."

"That is right. She left her caravan when she was ten to learn healing at the Lake. She found her destiny and her parents did not stop her then," he says, and then takes a breath, "so why should we stop Ra Gwiras now? You are _intli_ , and Si-Chani says your Order is a good one. Ra Gwiras will not starve with you. She will find freedom if she goes with you. So we wish for her to go."

"Even if you will never see her again?" Hu-Erith asks.

"Oh, brother," Mir-Yung laughs then. "Did you not learn before you left us? The journey is long and the roads are many, but all meet again when traveling days are done. Even if the Jedi raised you, you are Hamali, too. You know it to be true."

Hu-Erith blinks, taken aback, before his lips quirk. "No, I did not know. Thank you for teaching me." He then regards Mir-Yung reflectively. "You are not wrong. All become one in the Force in the end." 

Mir-Yung inclines his head. Then he confides, "Besides, I have seen it on the wind. We will meet again before the journey ends," his eyes blaze with certainty, "and she will thank us for letting her go, just as we ourselves were permitted to seek out our own paths by our own keepers." 

Hu-Erith takes a moment to comprehend this before realizing that Mir-Yung has had a vision.

"Ra Gwiras will return here?" he asks.

"She will. I am not surprised. Spirits return to visit familiar places when they have the chance. Just as you have," Mir-Yung adds. 

Hu-Erith goes quiet. The two men sink back into the silence. Then Hu-Erith says, "It is the will of both you and your spouse to give up your child to the Jedi?"

"It is."

Hu-Erith lets out a long breath. "Then the Jedi will take her."

Mir-Yung briefly shuts his eyes. But then he nods once in determination and opens them again. "Thank you, Hu Chelmin."

"We come to serve, Mir Ko'ona."

* * *

Instead of sleeping on their ship Hu-Erith and Fa-Sena join Mir-Yung and Ra Gwiras in the city's guest quarter. The rain has picked up again and the dirt road to the outer ring of the Circle quickly turns to mud, but when they arrive at the tent grounds the whole field is covered by another grand canopy that stretches out in both directions as far as the eye can see. Like at the Lake there are decorations of running cloth and spinning ornaments and chimes, but the colors of Liawilo are bolder and louder than the soft, bright pastels that had painted De'ibi. Mir-Yung goes straight for an open set of stands and sets up his hammock, but Hu-Erith and Fa-Sena have to rent theirs first.

"Will you sleep here with us or go stay with the rest of the children, padawan?" Hu-Erith asks his apprentice. Like at the bathhouses, there is an area set aside for children. The purple-haired clan is here, too, and they glance hopefully at Fa-Sena and his guardian once they realize he is present.

"I… may I, Master?" Fa-Sena asks anxiously. "I—I have… spent a great deal of time with them already."

"You are worried you have had too much fun tonight, Fa-Sena?" Hu-Erith asks with gentle amusement. Fa-Sena's ears redden but he nods, small and bashful, and perhaps a little put-off, too. He is a very young padawan, Hu-Erith acknowledges to himself, and freshly released from the creche. He may be worrying that his master is not treating him enough as a Learner. 

"Padawan, I know you are serious about the path and you wish to work hard on your first mission. Your instincts are good and I think they will serve you well in future. But here is something most Masters will not tell you…" Hu-Erith leans in, conspiratorial, and a wide-eyed Fa-Sena tilts forward to meet him, drawn in by the mischief in his teacher's gaze. "The best Jedi are the ones who find ways not just to have fun along the path, but to make it on the way."

"I… truly, Master?"

"You doubt me?" Hu-Erith puts on a look of insult. "Do you think I mislead you when I say there is great meaning and import in bringing joy to others on your travels?"

"I—no, of course not, Master—" Fa-Sena begins waving his hands frantically. 

"To follow the Force is not all gloom and sacrifice, padawan," Hu-Erith advises. "Service is not always the absence of play and pleasure. There will surely be times when you will be called upon to give things up. Indeed, there may come a day when you are asked to give more than you think you can give. But you need not manufacture your own trials and suffering. They will find you in their own time. Instead, you should take what joy you can find now. It will not always be present to you."

"I…" Fa-Sena stares up at his master with quiet wonder. "Yes, I… I understand, Master. Thank you for your wisdom."

Fa-Sena and Hu-Erith exchange very dignified bows—though Fa-Sena, Hu-Erith notes as he very carefully does not smile, does not quite pick up on the affectation of it. Mir-Yung, he can sense behind him, is barely holding on to his laughter.

"So: will you join your friends, Fa-Sena?" Hu-Erith asks again as he straightens briskly. "You are welcome to stay with us, of course, but you may not have the chance to see them again. This could be your last meeting."

"I will join them if that's all right," Fa-Sena says shyly and far more endearingly than a boy of his age ought to be able to.

"Yes, that is all right with me, padawan. We will come find you in the morning."

"Here," Mir-Yung says, depositing Ra Gwiras into Fa-Sena's arms once again. Ra Gwiras gives her father a look, but of course it means nothing from the face of a baby. Luckily, Hu-Erith tilts his head at Mir-Yung with a look of his own. 

"What is it?" Mir-Yung asks.

"You will not keep her by your side? It is her last night on Atla."

"Yes…?" Mir-Yung tilts his head quizzically back. "So she should spend her time among other spirits of her kind, should she not?"

Neither Fa-Sena nor Hu-Erith are right-footed enough to respond timely to this, and by the time they have understood his meaning Mir-Yung is already deflating in his hammock, face wan with exhaustion. Master and apprentice exchange looks as the man throws an arm over his eyes and bites down hard on his lower lip.

"...I will take care with her, Master."

"Yes, Fa-Sena. I know you will."


	3. Chapter 3

Despite everything Mir-Yung is awake at the very crack of dawn. Hu-Erith opens his eyes and looks over the braided edge of his hammock to see Mir-Yung dressing not in his road clothes, but some uniform that every Atli in the tent but Hu-Erith seems to know. It is an outfit of loose, cropped trousers, gathered at the shins with ribbon and bronze ornaments, cloth slippers, and an open vest clinking with strings of small coin-like medals. There is a long blue sash fluttering around his waist and very ornamental armlets, dangling with thin decorative chains and round filigreed tokens, sit on his biceps. He is replete with tassels and decoration. There is even a feathered circlet about his brow. Hanging strings of beads and teardrop-shaped ornaments tumble from his hair and down the left side of his face. 

"Mir-Yung?" Hu-Erith sits up and stares.

"Did I wake you? I apologize," Mir-Yung sighs, but then smiles a bit self-deprecatingly. He takes two steps and bends down to retrieve something from his bag. Every inch of him jingles like a belt of sleigh bells.

"I… what are you doing, brother?" Hu-Erith, for lack of better understanding, gets up and also begins getting dressed.

"I am preparing to visit the Cheitwa," Mir-Yung replies. When he straightens he is holding a large ring, flat and metal, like a quoit or chakram. Mir-Yung catches Hu-Erith looking and, with a practiced gesture, separates the one ring into two. Then he holds them out, one in each hand, for Hu-Erith to inspect. Several strangers who were woken by Mir-Yung's costume also crowd in to see.

The two rings are actually different in size, with one being small enough to fit in the inner circumference of the other. They are also quite intricately decorated, embossed with a design of long twirling grasses. Their stems wind together in beautiful knots and their heads, heavy with delicately detailed seeds, drape themselves over a crest featuring a torse of those same grasses and a pair of bells. The crest, unlike the rest, seems to be made of pale green crystal. Hu-Erith's attention is immediately seized by the quiet chime that sounds from it in the Force.

"Brother, I have not seen  _ wathair _ so decorated since I came of age," a silver-haired man informs Mir-Yung with a look of awe. The small crowd agrees, murmuring their own words of astonishment, and Mir-Yung offers them a modest smile.

"Are you going now? At this hour?" Hu-Erith queries, pulling on his boots as Mir-Yung fastens a clinking chain belt, also heavy with grass-knot decorations, around his middle. He ties it to his sash to keep it from sliding before he takes the wathair and snaps them back together with a click that rings with Force. Then he hangs it at his hip.

"Yes. If I do not leave now it will be too late after the children wake."

"Is that why you had Fa-Sena take Ra Gwiras?" Hu-Erith wonders. Mir-Yung's lips quirk.

"No. It is our way to let the young be with the young," he says. Then he pauses and smiles a bit. "But it was not an unfortunate thing, either."

By the time Hu-Erith is dressed Mir-Yung also seems ready to depart. He looks over his limbs, gives each of them a good shake, and jumps once or twice on the balls of his feet to make sure nothing loosens or slips. The other tent goers offer their own inspections, but Mir-Yung is quickly found to be in order. It's a mildly cacophonous affair; the sound of it is not necessarily inharmonious, though, as the costume seems to have been made with the purpose of chiming pleasantly. Any others who were still sleeping are now definitely awake, however. 

"May I go with you, brother?" Hu-Erith requests. He does not know what the Cheitwa is, nor does he have any recollection of what wathair are, but that singing crystal has captured his attention.

"I do not mind," Mir-Yung shrugs. Despite having been rather rudely awoken, the majority of the other Atli do not seem to mind either, and they offer not just well-wishes but also praying gestures as Mir-Yung departs.

"Is it required to wear these clothes when visiting the Cheitwa?" Hu-Erith queries as they begin walking towards the Circle at the heart of the city.

"Not for everyone," Mir-Yung replies. "And even for dancers, not always. But I go to claim a  _ lunwa _ today, so I must come in my garb. They will not know me otherwise."

"I… see." Hu-Erith does not know what to make of this. He does, however, think that it makes quite a lot of sense that Mir-Yung is a dancer. From the moment Hu-Erith first met him he'd thought Mir-Yung carried himself with great grace.

Mir-Yung's step seems to change as he emerges at the edge of the wide stone slabs and sweeps through, winding his way past gliders left idle overnight. Very few Atli are about at this hour, but those who are nod respectfully at him. By the time they have both arrived at the other edge of the circle, where its very edge sits flush against a cliff that falls straight down into the canyon, Hu-Erith feels he is standing beside a terribly different man.

There's a narrow set of rough-hewn steps leading down the cliff here. Mir-Yung descends these less like a man and more like a spirit of water, fluid and elegant. Hu-Erith follows after him in silence and eventually the two come to a stop at a large archway. A hall is built straight back into the cliff; the walls are lit with torches and decorated with many geometric designs, overlapping circles chief among them. The Atli, Hu-Erith thinks, quite like circles.

There are several other rooms and halls that branch off from this corridor, but Mir-Yung passes them all by and heads to the large gate standing at the very end. Two sentries stand guard here, one male and one female. Both are dressed in a manner similar to Mir-Yung, with sashes and tassels and garlands of small, dangling ornaments.

Mir-Yung removes his wathair from his belt and presents it to the guard on the left. She takes it with a pardon-me gesture and inspects the crystal crest on the outer ring carefully. Then she flips it over and checks the other side, where Hu-Erith is surprised to see that a second crystal, dark blue in color, is embedded in the smaller ring. This one is carved into a crest shaped like a hollow teardrop. Its center is filled with curves and spirals that look like wind, or like water.

She nods once and returns the  _ wathair _ to Mir-Yung. "Who enters, brother?" she inquires.

"Mir Ko'ona, called Rihas," Mir-Yung replies, much to Hu-Erith's surprise. He had not thought he would hear another one of Mir-Yung's heartnames today. "My companion is Hu Chelmin, called Erith."

The keepers nod and the gates, tall wrought-iron things with more swirling designs of scrolls and interlocking circles, part with their hand gestures. When Hu-Erith passes through he can hear the Force whispering  _ protection, sacredness, sanctuary _ . 

They arrive at a veil-like curtain, which Mir-Yung pulls aside just enough to pass through. The tiled floor and decorated murals give way to cave walls. There is a short walk up to a bridge that leads out to a huge circular chamber glittering with crystals, embedded in stone pillars and leaking in swirling clusters all along the walls and ceiling. Pale silver grass and delicate white bellflowers rise up from the ground, and vines with broad, fan-shaped leaves wind up the walls around the formations. 

Hu-Erith stops dead in his tracks. The Force sings in the very walls around him.


	4. Chapter 4

There is a single man sitting cross-legged on a dias at the center of the room.

"Mir-Rihas?" he perks up, eyes still shut, when Mir-Yung steps onto the bridge. Mir-Yung pauses before his face lights up.

"O-Fion!" he exclaims, racing forward to meet him on the dias. O-Fion opens his eyes and leaps straight to his feet. The two men do not waste time with handtouches and launch straight into a hug instead. The jangling of their clothes fill the room with metallic echoes. 

"Rihas, when did you come back to the Crags?" O-Fion asks, drawing back and clapping a hand to his friend's neck.

"Last night," Mir-Yung replies, returning the gesture with a large grin. "Here, meet my companion, Hu Chelmin."

Hu-Erith and O-Fion exchange greetings, though Hu-Erith is distracted by his surroundings. To think that on this small planet there was such a cave of Force-attuned crystals. When Mir-Yung and O-Fion resume speaking enthusiastically he wanders closer to the cave walls. 

After a few moments of inspection Hu-Erith concludes that these Atla crystals are not exactly alike to kyber. They sing with the Force, undoubtedly, and perhaps even more loudly. But when Hu-Erith lifts a hand to hover over one the tell-tale semi-sentience is nowhere to be found; they no more recognize him than they do each other. Curious, Hu-Erith leans forward to touch the clear glittering prism in the wall before him.

O-Fion immediately whirls in place, leg sweeping back. His _wathair_ jumps into his left hand while his right extends. Hu-Erith, whose fingers are mere centimeters from the crystal, finds himself gripped by the Force, utterly frozen. 

"Brother, are you mad?" O-Fion demands with a look of utter shock. "You would take a lunwa in the wall in the presence of not one but two dancers? You have not earned the right!"

"I—I had no intention to take it for myself, brother," Hu-Erith replies measuredly. "I would not steal from this place. I only wished to touch it."

"Chelmin, what?" O-Fion is aghast. "To touch and to take are one and the same! You are a thief!"

Mir-Yung, who had tensed reflexively to his friend's hostility, immediately lowers his own weapon—for it is, Hu-Erith now knows, most definitely a weapon. He was right to think it akin to a chakram. 

Mir-Yung puts a hand on O-Fion's shoulder. "Peace, brother, he doesn't know. I'm sorry, I should have told him."

"Doesn't know?" O-Fion regards Hu-Erith incredulously. "He is a grown man. How could he not know?"

Mir-Yung frowns. "Be kind to him," he says a bit sharply. "He was not raised among us, and he has come to Atla to do my family a great favor. I owe him much."

This seems to take O-Fion aback. He lowers his arms and his grip on Hu-Erith releases. Hu-Erith takes a large step backwards.

"What do you mean, Rihas?"

"He has come to help my daughter," Mir-Yung replies. "It is her lunwa I have come for today," he adds.

"Your daughter…? But she is still an infant. If she wishes to dance it will be years yet before you can give it to her."

"She is going away," Mir-Yung explains, patting his friend's arm before going over to the wall. "As Hu-Erith went away. He will give it to her when she is big enough." 

Hu-Erith's eyebrows climb in confusion. O-Fion regards him with an unimpressed look. 

"You would trust someone so ignorant with your daughter's lunwa?" he asks doubtfully.

"If he is ignorant, why don't you teach him?" Mir-Yung retorts loftily as he kneels in the grass and flowers before a shining cluster. 

"What? You do it!"

"I am busy," Mir-Yung replies. He reaches out a hand and touches the crystal. It immediately disintegrates. Hu-Erith's eyes widen.

"Is _that_ what you mean? To touch and to take is the same?" he questions. O-Fion glances disdainfully at him and opens his mouth to demand something of Mir-Yung, but Mir-Yung has already shut his eyes and is kneeling silently at his spot in the grass. The pile of crystal sand before him rises; he holds out his hands and it begins pooling in a loose sphere above them.

"Spirit of dung," O-Fion mutters sourly at Mir-Yung's back. Mir-Yung's eyebrows tick upward, though his eyes stay shut and his face remains focused.

"Hu Chelmin, what do you know of dancers?" O-Fion sighs and faces Hu-Erith. Hu-Erith can only shake his head.

"Next to nothing, brother. You will have to teach me."

O-Fion pinches the bridge of his nose. "All right. What do you know of our history, then? The history of the Atli?"

Hu-Erith contemplates this for a moment. What he knows of Atli history, truthfully, is mostly what he has read of it in the Archives on his own time, when he was young and curious to know what and where he came from. If his parents ever told him he does not remember. Still, he gathers his knowledge and begins recounting what he has read.

The Atli are descended from citizens of the sovereign system of Iande. Their ancestors once were regular members of Iandean society, but that had changed with the rise of anti-Force-sensitive sentiment some five hundred plus years ago. Fearing these strange powers, the ruling class began a fierce persecution. Sensitives were labelled as carriers of a congenital disease, forbidden from marrying, persecuted for having children, and, after this increasingly severe series of rights-stripping legislations, were eventually banished to the minor planet that came to be known as Atla. They were imprisoned with heavily restricted access to technology; any person with Force sensitivity remaining in Iandean society would summarily be taken from their families, stripped of their possessions, and exiled. All Force sensitives known to that civilization were gathered and isolated there—before the government began killing them outright, anyway. To this day the population of sensitives in the Iandean system outside of Atla itself is abnormally low.

“You have the right of it, more or less,” O-Fion admits grudgingly. “Then it should come to no surprise to you that our ancestors, once imprisoned here, were not permitted to carry weapons, not even to hunt food or defend themselves from the wildlife.”

Indeed, that is unsurprising. The history of his people, Hu-Erith reflects, is one of great hardship.

“But we needed to find some way—any way—to defend ourselves. We had the Breath, of course, and it helped, but the Breath is a will, not a weapon. That is how the wathair came to be.” O-Fion lifts his wathair and splits it into two just as Mir-Yung had earlier that morning.

“To keep the jailers from confiscating the wathair, our ancestors decorated them intricately and told the jailers they were used for dancing,” O-Fion explains. He lifts one arm over his head and crosses his other over his chest before proceeding into a short series of steps, sweeping the rings through the air with each movement. “And it was not even a lie, for once they were made, we did begin to use them for dance. And that is why among our people, who were not permitted bear steel for the sake of their own lives, to be a dancer is to be the closest thing to a warrior as we were allowed.”

O-Fion, with a nod of permission, allows Hu-Erith to take one half of his wathair and hold it in his hands. It is a weighty thing, far heavier than he had expected.

“It is not sharpened,” Hu-Erith observes. O-Fion snorts.

“Of course not. That would have given the deception away.”

“Then how were they used as weapons?”

“They do not cut with metal. They cut with the Breath,” O-Fion replies, pointing to the crystal crest embedded in it. Then he bends down, plucks a hardy shoot of grass growing up between the tiles of the dias, and runs it across the edge of the ring twice. The first time it does nothing, but the second time Hu-Erith hears a quiet hum in the Force, and then the grass is drifting in two pieces back to the ground.

“Incredible,” Hu-Erith breathes with wonder. “It only cuts when it is willed to with the Force.”

He can see now how an Atli might cherish a wathair in the same way a Jedi would cherish a lightsaber. In a way it is almost exactly like a lightsaber—a thing attuned to the Force, connecting the wielder to its will, studied as an art and used to defend life. 

“In these days we are allowed to use spears and bows as we please,” O-Fion says as he reunites the two halves of his wathair, “and lately even blasters, though they are very few, have made their way into Liawilo. Only dancers who study the wathair as it was in tradition use lunwa. And only dancers may come here to take the lunwa,” he adds sharply. “And so here at the Gate, at every hour of the day, we stand guard over this place. It is sacred.”

Hu-Erith immediately dips into a low bow of apology. “I understand. Through my ignorance I have caused great offense to your culture and your way of life. I beg for your forgiveness.”

O-Fion starts, for that is not the way of seeking clemency on Atla. He blinks and then clears his throat.

“...As you said, you were unknowing. But now you are no longer ignorant. I trust you will not try to touch the lunwa again.”

Hu-Erith inclines his head. O-Fion, looking awkward, glances at Mir-Yung, but Mir-Yung is still deep in prayer. He clears his throat again.

“If you were with us for any number of years before leaving, I do not doubt you had your own wathair to play with growing up,” he says after a moment. Hu-Erith, realizing that this is an attempt at conciliatory small talk, smiles.

“Is that so? Can they be used as toys?”

“Only wathair with lunwa are weapons, and even then they are not weapons until their wielders will them to be. When you return, look at the people in the street. If you do not see children dancing with them then you will at least see their grandparents carving them from wood.”

Hu-Erith stands a moment and tries to recall whether or not he can remember playing with wooden rings, but he cannot.

They lapse into silence. After a moment of contemplation Hu-Erith picks a patch of grass to kneel in and begins a meditation of his own, not yet having done so for the morning. O-Fion looks between both Hu-Erith and Mir-Yung before he huffs and returns to his vigil on the dais. An indeterminate amount of time passes.

Mir-Yung lets out a long exhale.

"Are you done, brother? Let me see," O-Fion immediately perks up and goes to crouch beside Mir-Yung. Hu-Erith takes a moment to center himself before he stands and joins them.

"Skillfully made, Rihas," O-Fion admires. The pile of crystal sand has coalesced into a crest just like those in O-Fion's and Mir-Yung's weapons. Hu-Erith realizes then that the crystals they use are not carved, but fused into shape with the Force.

"Green like the _gwiman_ from her birth," Mir-Yung sighs distantly as he takes the crystal, no bigger than a coin, between his thumb and index finger. He holds it up to the low light. "Brightborn daughter…"

The crest is a wreath of oak leaves, crossed at the bottom and wrapped around a ring of tiny acorns. Gwiras, Hu-Erith thinks with sudden acuity. _Gwi_ , acorn. _Ras_ , wreath. 

O-Fion reaches out and touches it gently. "You have recorded much in this," he says after a moment. 

"It is what was required. I cannot teach her where she is going."

Hu-Erith reaches out to touch the crystal as well. At first there is nothing but a warm tone, a pleasant pitch in the Force, and he wonders what O-Fion means. But then, distantly, he gets the impression of a sequence of steps, the twist of wrists, the sweep of arms…

"Can you see anything from it, Hu Chelmin?" O-Fion asks curiously. "It was not made for you, so I do not think you would…"

"Ah, no," Hu-Erith shakes his head. "Just impressions… nothing so solid as a vision. Did you imbue it with memories, Mir-Yung?"

"What did you think I was doing?" Mir-Yung asks back, curious. 

"What? Oh… well, I thought you might be attuning it." Hu-Erith's brow creases. "We Jedi often meditate with our crystals for days before using them in our lightsabers. Though then again, we make our lightsabers for ourselves. If you were attuning it to yourself there would be no point of giving it to Ra Gwiras."

"Attune?" both Mir-Yung and O-Fion tilt their heads, so Hu-Erith gives an abridged explanation of the pilgrimage to Ilum and the process of building a lightsaber.

"Crystals with semi-sentience…" Mir-Yung muses, eyebrow raised at the glittering walls around him. O-Fion looks skeptical.

"They are rocks," he says doubtfully. "Special rocks, to be sure, and things of great beauty that serve as a channel of grace, but—recognizing their owners? Having their own wills?"

"Your crystals do not seem to be of the same way."

"No. We use them as tools to teach and to connect objects to the Breath. They hold the wisdom that we put into them, but nothing more," Mir-Yung replies. 

Hu-Erith wonders briefly what would happen if one were to craft a lightsaber out of an Atla crystal. Then he is given a surprisingly clear answer from the Force itself: nothing dangerous, but nothing desirable. 

Each thing has its own nature, he decides after a moment. Lunwa and kyber—analogous but not interchangeable. It makes sense. For all they parallel, after all, a wathair is not a lightsaber. 

"I will come back again later, Fion," Mir-Yung sighs again a moment later, stashing the crystal in the cloth of his wristlets before he begins massaging his temples. "I will be in Liawilo for some time to recover."

Hu-Erith abruptly remembers that Mir-Yung is suffering from a rather acute case of Force exhaustion. "Brother, if you use any more of the Force, you are going to harm yourself."

O-Fion reaches out and puts a hand on the crown of Mir-Yung's head in a gesture that looks oddly parental. Apparently it feels parental, too, because Mir-Yung makes a displeased face and shoves O-Fion's arm away. 

"Stop it. Do you think you are my _ka'a_?"

"He'd be worried if he were here," O-Fion replies, making a face back. "Take a break, Rihas. You feel like sail lines pulled to fray."

"If he were here he'd tell you to step back from his work," Mir-Yung complains. "Find a young one to guide, not me. You cannot mentor your betters."

O-Fion instantly scowls. "Listen to the arrogance of this man, Hu Chelmin," he grouses. "Because he has skills he refuses to listen to the counsel of his brother. Just because he's older…" he adds in a grumble.

"It is very reasonable counsel, Mir-Yung," Hu-Erith points out.

"You are leaving soon enough. There will be time to rest then."

Hu-Erith has the insight then that Mir-Yung is the type of person who copes with grief best by working. He decides not to press the issue further.

"If you want work, Rihas, you can take some of my shifts while you remain at the Circle," O-Fion suggests, pivoting from grouchy straight into hopeful. Mir-Yung looks at him just like an unimpressed older sibling, but then he shrugs.

"That is fine. I have not stood vigil since I married."

They leave a beaming O-Fion waving on the dais. As advised, Hu-Erith looks out over the people on the streets—there are more now that the hour is not so early—and halfway through the inner ring of the city he does indeed spot a pair of children clutching wooden wathair and skipping between flowerpots in a grassy, open lot. The small one can only wave his arms and spin, but the older one performs long elegant leaps and sends her rings spiraling up into the air. They soar in graceful arcs before spinning back to her hands, guided by the Force. She twirls on one leg and deftly catches the wathair before dipping into a deep curtsey. Her playmate claps wildly.

"How early does a child begin to dance?" Hu-Erith wonders as Mir-Yung nods approvingly at the child as they pass. The girl's eyes widen and her mouth curls into a startled O. Then she lets out a squeal and begins jumping excitedly, thrilled to have been acknowledged by a Cheitwa dancer in full costume.

"Our people are born dancing," Mir-Yung replies amusedly, though whether at the girl or at Hu-Erith, Hu-Erith can't quite tell. "But if you mean to dance—" he uses the verb _linya_ rather than _shalna_ , as Hu-Erith had— "generally at ten or eleven. _Li anme_ yonder, I think, must be practicing for a Selection. We all who chose this path learned the steps she was performing just now."

"Dancing seems very precious to the Atli," Hu-Erith says softly. 

"It is. Dancing gave our people hope and life when there was none to be found. I do not know if Ra Gwiras will wish for this lunwa I have made for her," Mir-Yung's gaze turns wistful, "but it is her birthright, and if she wishes to seek her heritage when she grows, I would not have her seek and find nothing."

Hu-Erith finds himself remembering a sudden ache from his youth. That ache had driven him to sit for hours in the Archives, researching Iande, Atla, and the story of the first Jedi to come in contact with his people. He remembers asking the masters how he came to the Temple and listening to stories of the exchange that gave rise to him and his two Atli peers, the _kwati_ _jedai_ of the Atli. They had never seemed to question where they came from and why. Their Masters had never encouraged them to, either. Of the three of them only Hu-Erith had ever wondered, and in every step he had taken in seeking his origins, he had walked alone. Forging through disapproving whispers of inappropriate interest, enduring quiet pressure from his master to stop his search, relying on no one—from the moment he first started to the moment he finally found the Knight-now-Master who had claimed him from Atla, he had walked alone.

"I will hand her the lunwa when the time comes," Hu-Erith vows even though he knows in that moment he will draw fire from his peers for this clinging connection, this personal possession, this clear path to _attachment_. "No matter what road she has chosen or who her master might be. I will give her the choice."

Mir-Yung looks away. When he turns his head back his eyes are shining with tears.

"Si-Chani was right to call for you," he choked. "I did not fear sending my daughter away, but I did fear sending her into captivity. In life our people cherish freedom the most of all. You will guard that for her… and I know now truly that we have chosen rightly."

When they arrive back at the guest quarter Mir-Yung sits on his hammock with his bag. He withdraws a second wathair, plain and undecorated, that is made of a dark metal quite unlike the bright bronze of his own. He closes his eyes and the Force tolls like bells around him so loudly that several others in the area pause to look at him. He fits Ra Gwiras' lunwa directly into the metal without any tools at all. Then he wraps the wathair in a shining blue cloth just the same color as the sash that he wears.

"Thank you, brother," he says softly as he hands it over to Hu-Erith. "This spirit will remember your kindness until his dying day. My wife thanks you as well."

"Mir-Yung Ko'ona," Hu-Erith responds. "I will watch over your daughter. I vow to you."


	5. Chapter 5

Ra Gwiras is stopped with wonder when her father, accompanied by Hu-Erith, appears to retrieve them in the morning. The other children are mildly awed, too, by the grandeur of his ensemble. Without thinking Ra Gwiras stretches her arms out.

“Did you enjoy yourself, padawan?” Hu-Erith asks Fa-Sena. Fa-Sena immediately beams up at him from his spot sandwiched between two of his friends. The trio of them are swinging in a single hammock.

Mir-Yung lifts Ra Gwiras into his arms and Ra Gwiras takes the time to examine his headdress with fascination. In all this short life she’d never him wear such splendid clothes. She grabs at the dangling beads and gleaming teardrops unthinkingly.

“Ah—” Mir-Yung winces as she yanks on his hair. Ra Gwiras immediately lets go. Before she’d become a baby in this strange foreign world, she’d been an adult, and no matter how much she had loved jewelry and shining things even back then, she feels abruptly embarrassed now.

Once she releases him, though, Mir-Yung just smiles fondly at her. He shifts her to his hip so he can hold her with one arm before reaching up with his other and lifting his circlet from his head. It comes off, feathers and hanging beads and all, and he hands it to her so she may examine it to her heart’s content.

Despite everything Mir-Yung has already done for her—carrying her, feeding her, taking her on this long journey just to give her away, all so she may live a healthy life—this kind, gentle action causes a rush of love to swell up within her. Ra Gwiras, feeling suddenly grieved to know that she will be parting from this man, clutches the circlet with both hands and buries her face into his side.

The farewell is not short but it is inevitable. After a hearty breakfast meal and more time spent with Fa-Sena’s cabal of charmed locals the time finally comes for the Jedi to board their vessel and make the return trip to the Core. Several other Atli in addition to Fa-Sena's friends, children and adults alike, gather once they realize that the all-too-uncommon spacecraft that had landed yesterday morning would be taking off again today. Gliders clear away, making room, and a half-ring of curious bystanders look on as a Cheitwa dancer in full garb—sans headdress—hands a child to the robed strangers—for however Atli they look in face and coloring, they are still very much strangers. Ra Gwiras tries to return Mir-Yung's circlet. He doesn't take it back.

"Our roads will cross again," Mir-Yung says to the trio of them. Behind him the smallest of Fa-Sena's friends has begun to sniffle unhappily. "I will see you, _anme'al._ "

"We will see you," Hu-Erith promises back.

"I'll see you, O-Tiyo, Jo-Quoni, Kam-So, Si-Mawa!" Fa-Sena calls. He looks at the crying one. "I'll see you, Fa-Beth!"

Mir-Yung steps back and the ramp closes. Several moments pass as the Jedi double check their belongings and their craft before the thrusters start. And then, just like that, the ship is rising into the atmosphere and flying away. The Atli on the ground watch in relative silence as it grows smaller and smaller. Finally, when the ship is just a shrinking speck in the sky, they begin to disperse.

"Quoni, Mawa, So'at, Bethat," the plum-haired girl says determinedly. "We're going to go fly kites, come on."

Mir-Yung, still staring up at the sky, says, "Perhaps I will fly a kite today, too."

"Do you want to meet Fa-Sena again as well, uncle?" Si-Mawa asks curiously as she takes the now-quietly crying Fa-Beth's hand. The children stop to look inquisitively at him. 

Mir-Yung looks down. He's silent for a long moment. Then he smiles at her.

"Yes… I would like to meet them again. All three of them."

* * *

Atla is a secluded planet even in its own system, and to begin with the Iande system sits at the very edge of the Gradilis sector. Being so far into Wild Space means that the area is neither well-known nor well-mapped, and making their way back to the nearest hyperlane is an exercise of caution and skill. Fa-Sena, still barely a junior padawan and not a terribly confident pilot to begin with, is relegated to babysitting duty while Hu-Erith carefully steers them back to more familiar grounds.

"I'm surprised the Jedi ever came to such a remote place. It's not as if Iande is part of the Republic," Fa-Sena says from the copilot's seat. Ra Gwiras is sitting on his lap and he's got a datapad with a whole folder of untouched classwork in hand.

"After Iande began recovering space travel capabilities following their extended civil war, they were the ones to reach out," Hu-Erith replies, though his eyes are still fixed on the controls. "They thought perhaps they could petition aid to accelerate their recovery, being so crippled as they were. But it was determined that no aid would be provided because they were not part of the galactic government. Eventually they decided they wished to initiate negotiations for joining the Republic, but the negotiations did not go smoothly. It was at that point a Jedi Knight was appended to the diplomatic mission. While he was there the recent efforts to reestablish contact with the lost planet Atla were the focus of local news, and, when hearing of the history it had with Force-sensitives, he decided to seek out and visit Atla himself once his role in the mission was concluded."

"That was… Master Charl Timo, right?" Fa-Sena's brow creases. "You told me a little about him before. He was the Jedi who brought you to the Temple."

"Yes. He's the one who has compiled most of the research on the Atli Persecutions for the Archives. He's also the one the good folk of the Circle of the Crags contacted when Si-Chani began looking for a way to get in touch with me."

"With you in particular?" Fa-Sena questions.

"Yes. I didn't know it at the time, but as it turns out Si-Chani and I are some degree of cousins—we come from the same caravan. She recalled me being taken as a child and thought to speak with me. Because I am _intli_ ," Hu-Erith's expression becomes a little distant, "she thought I would be the most trustworthy point of contact. So once Master Timo looked into things and learned that I was already something of an Atla scholar myself he decided to connect us."

"I see," Fa-Sena says. He fidgets a moment and Hu-Erith lets him squirm a bit before he articulates his question. "Master, am I Hama—Hamal—"

"Are you Hamali as well?" Hu-Erith glances sidelong at his apprentice. "...At first guess I'd say no, considering your hair color. The Lakelanders tend toward reddish or golden hair. With that said, though, there are exceptions. People from Liawilo and Gena do marry into the Hama with frequency."

"Mir-Yung had dark hair," Fa-Sena points out.

"Indeed, and his grandmother, I am told, is a permanent resident of the Circle of the Lake. In truth there's no way to know just by looking at you."

"Oh." Fa-Sena goes quiet. 

"...If you like, we can ask Master Timo when we return to the Temple," Hu-Erith says after a moment. "Unlike the _kwati jedai_ , your parents gave you up during his second research trip to Atla, and you are the only member of the second generation. He is likely to remember where your family approached him."

"Oh, could we?" Fa-Sena perks up.

"So long as he does not mind, I see no problem with it." 

Fa-Sena, looking significantly cheered, smiles and returns to his assignments, idly bouncing Ra Gwiras on his knee as he reads. Hu-Erith holds in a deep sigh, thinking about his own master. If it had been him asking, Hu-Erith thinks tiredly, she would have seen many problems.

Hu-Erith to this day does not think that his master had meant to be deliberately obstructive. He is aware that all the masters of the first Atli padawans had faced many challenges as the mentors of youths from beyond the Republic. Though the Council had never spoken one way or another on it, other Jedi had had plenty to say about the way Charl Timo had veered off into Wild Space of his own volition, picked up a trio of Force-sensitive children from a nowhere-planet not even in contact with its own system's governance, and brought them without a care in the world to Coruscant. It had not helped that all three of them had been on the cusp of being too old to become initiates to begin with. Or that, being from such a familial society, they had had significant difficulties settling into the creche. 

In hindsight he thinks it would not have been so difficult if they had not insisted in driving wedges between the three _kwati_ Atli, all in the name of preventing attachment. As if children did not have their own loves already, he thinks a little bitterly. Just because they were smaller, more resilient, more easily pried away from those initial bonds… sometimes Hu-Erith thinks that in cleaving so fervently to the Code, the Jedi crush fear of loss and replace it with fear of love instead.

"Master?"

"Ah, yes?" Hu-Erith snaps out of his musings.

"Are you all right?" Fa-Sena peers at him concernedly. "You felt kind of… of angry, I guess."

Angry—yes, Hu-Erith supposes there is anger there. Not necessarily just for himself and his Atli peers, but for all the Jedi and their birth families at large and all the things they could be but are not. For all the Order claimed to love balance, so many of its ways as they are now seem extreme.

Hu-Erith holds this in his heart for a moment before releasing it into the Force. "I'm fine, padawan, thank you. Just some unpleasant thoughts. They can really start to creep up on you as you age, you know."

"I don't think you're all that old," Fa-Sena says.

"Ah, but I am aging, so my wisdom is still valid." Hu-Erith winks at him. Fa-Sena looks at him, puzzled as to why this would be in question, before he shrugs.

"As you say, Master."

* * *

Ra Gwiras becomes the newest member of Boma Clan, which is primarily diurnal and, with the recent graduation of its eldest member to the Education Corps, totally human—with the exception of its crechemaster, the Twi'lek Master Ileera Vant. Hu-Erith expects that will change soon, however. Being only three members strong at the moment, Boma Clan is due to take in more initiates.

Ra Gwiras is almost instantly flagged for several majorly life-threatening health risks by the Healers, the not least of which are a heart defect and a complicated lung condition involving inflammation, abnormal tissues, and scarring. They're shocked that the child has managed to reach this age, coming as she does from what is functionally a class three primitive society. Though when it is explained to them the planet is host of an advanced culture that has developed its own school of Force healing—artificial arrests in technological development notwithstanding—their incredulity softens a bit.

"But I can't imagine the skill it took to prolong her life with such a total lack of equipment," the Healer on duty shakes her head after Hu-Erith finishes reporting what he knows of Ra Gwiras' medical history. "After she was born—you said her mother was her healer? She must have been mechanically ventilating her daughter the whole way until they reached their Healers' Circle, all with the Force. I can't imagine performing healing that intensive immediately after labor..."

In the same way Mir-Yung had masterfully utilized the Force during and after the journey to Liawilo, Si-Chani, it seems, had done the same to keep Ra Gwiras alive. Hu-Erith shakes his head to himself over the difficulty and discipline of it. Such feats are worthy of fully-trained Jedi Knights and Masters.

This more than anything, he thinks, is the reason why he has studied his origins so intently. Not just because they are his origins, but because of the knowledge that over five hundred years of hardship has taught to a community of Force users. It has long been the way of the Jedi to say that one never has nothing, for there is always the Force—but in the case of the Atli that had not been a saying, but a reality. They had had _nothing_ , and they had learned to use the Force masterfully because of it.

"There is wisdom in that," Master Timo says to him when they meet some days later. "That is the reason why—that is why I began to study Atla to begin with. All of us Jedi who study the cultures of the galaxy, learning even from more distant pasts—" here he nods to his colleague Eno, who nods distractedly back from his terminal in the very corner of the Archives— "do so because we know this truth."

"Does it frustrate you, Master?" Hu-Erith asks. He's not entirely sure he himself knows what he is referring to, but after a long moment of contemplation, Master Timo gives a slow, short nod anyway. 

"At times," he replies.


End file.
